The South African Police Service (SAPS) cannot provide Parliament with figures on the number of political killings in recent years, raising questions about the state’s ability to understand and effectively counter the phenomenon.

In response to a parliamentary question from uMkhonto weSizwe Party MP Crossby Vusi Shongwe, the Acting Minister of Police Firoz Cachalia (his title retains the qualifier “acting”) was asked to provide the number of political killing cases registered since 1 January 2020, broken down by province and year.

He was also asked how many of these cases had resulted in arrests, prosecutions, convictions, and acquittals, how many remained under investigation, and what was causing delays in finalising the matters.

The Acting Minister was unable to provide any of the requested figures.

He responded that collating the information “would require the manual verification of individual case records across all provinces and reporting years”.

“Such an endeavour,” the reply continued, “would require the diversion of resources away from operational responsibilities and core policing functions to the detriment of service delivery to communities.”

The response raises a fundamental question about the capacity of the South African state to respond to a rising tide of political killings.

A recent report by The Common Sense put the number of publicly known political killings in South Africa between 2000 and mid-2026 at about 500. Concerningly, as many as 26 had been recorded in the course of 2026 (with close to half the year still to run), as opposed to 24 in the whole of 2024 and 25 in 2025.

Reliable data are an important component of any effort to combat crime. Knowing how many incidents are occurring, where they are taking place and whether investigations are resulting in arrests and convictions is essential information for law enforcement agencies to plan and assess their interventions. This is especially important in respect of organised crime.

The apparent increase in killing suggests that whatever efforts are being made in this respect are not particularly effective.

The Acting Minister did provide an explanation of sorts for delays in finalising political-killing cases.

These were “generally attributable to the complexity of these investigations, which frequently involve organised or premeditated conduct, the reluctance or intimidation of witnesses, the tracing of suspects, and dependencies on forensic analysis and other evidentiary processes”.

The Acting Minister added that these matters depended on prosecutorial and court processes. While this made them ultimately the province of South Africa’s courts and prosecuting authority, this also underlines the need for first-class intelligence work by the police to mount successful prosecutions.

With political killings central to the work of the Madlanga Commission – which occupies South Africa’s news cycle daily – and with an election less than three months away, this information deficit represents nothing short of dereliction of the state’s responsibilities.